A Fort St. John woman is speaking out about the lack of support for those suffering from vaccine injuries.
In November 2021, Michelle Worton received her first does of the Covid-19 vaccine. She says her life completely changed after that, because she started experiencing severe immune system, vision, and neurological damage.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Worton was operating her own dental hygiene clinic in Fort St. John. Now, after being forced to spend $300,000 on life-saving brain surgery and other treatments, she has had to sell her clinic because she can’t work.
“There was a program that was meant for individuals like me, that were meant to be there to help us if we were injured. And that program is not meeting those expectations,” explains Worton.
Those who were injured by the Covid-19 vaccine could join the Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) to receive financial support. The program was implemented in December 2020 by the federal government to compensate people who have been seriously and permanently injured by any Health Canada-authorized vaccine administered in Canada.
Worton says she’s still waiting for the VISP to help and she’s almost out of money and solutions. “I have no income. I am waiting, hoping, that the Vaccine Injury Support Program will come through for me,” she says.
She adds that 1,700 Canadians are still waiting to be assigned to a VISP case manager.
“Prior to vaccination, I was a thriving, vibrant, healthy healthcare professional. I had no preexisting conditions, no concerns whatsoever,” explains Worton.
Worton says she took the vaccine because of the pressure put on her as a healthcare professional. “The amount of pressure that I had exhibited throughout the last quarter of 2021, between the vaccine mandates and the coercion from the Minister of Health. I was criticized and have since been ostracized from most of the medical community in Fort St. John.”
Health Canada reports there was 105,016,456 doses administered in Canada up to January 5, 2024. There were 58,712 cases with complications, and 47,010 of them were non-serious. That leaves 11,702 cases with serious complications, or 0.011% of all doses administered.
Worton says this is not an anti-vax conversation, as she was vaccinated for other reasons before. She says, “My job as a regular health care professional is to protect the public. If I’m not addressing and expressing my experience as a citizen, as a Canadian, I’m not protecting the public.”
Worton started experiencing neurological symptoms days after her second COVID vaccination in December 2021. Afterward, her life consisted of countless MRIs, blood work and visits to the emergency room.
“I experience severe headaches, cranial pressure, insomnia, cognitive deficits such as speech or mental processing, blurred, double, and tunnel vision, sound sensitivity, lapses in short-term memory, and problems with balance, upright posture and extraordinary dizziness.”
When she couldn’t get the medical attention she needed in Canada, she travelled to South Carolina to meet Dr. Sunil Patel. According to Dr. Patel, the cystic pineal gland was causing a chemical effect. The only way to relieve her condition is through a $150,000 surgery, with additional costs amounting to $200,000.
When she returned to B.C. in August of 2023, her neurologist said that no one in the province would be able to perform the surgery. Instead, he recommended a trial drug and more injections to manage the symptoms but not fix the problem.
“We’re living here in British Columbia, and we’re supposed to have this extraordinary health care system or access to care, and that’s the farthest from the truth,” says Worton.
Worton was forced to sell her car and her trailer to pay for the surgery. Many community members and local businesses at the time, also raised money so she could get the medical help she needed.
According to the National Library of Medicine, the anti-COVID vaccines can have side effects. The organization says that long post-COVID vaccination syndrome is often neglected.
On a visit to the Edmonton Heart Fit Clinic, they aged her vascular system to be almost 70 years old. At the time, she was 43 years old.
However, no Canadian doctor she visited could explain the reason behind her symptoms and how they related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Worton says, “I had no evidence of disease prior to vaccination. Throughout this experience I have been criticized, judged and mocked by medical professionals and individuals, as a whole, for asking hard questions about vaccine adverse effects. And that we can’t talk about it. Why? All I want is my health back. And if it means asking hard questions to get to the root cause, I will. I have to for myself and my family.”
Worton said Alberta has taken the lead on investigating their COVID-19 vaccine and pandemic response and hopes other provinces follow suit.